Today is Cyber Monday. Wait, whaaaaa?
In 2005, the National Retail Federation decided to call the Monday after Thanksgiving “Cyber Monday.” It’s supposed to symbolize a busy day for online retailers and be their promotional equivalent to the brick-and-mortar stores’ Black Friday.
However. The name? Would not have been my first choice.
Didn’t anyone tell the NRF that “cyber” as a verb means “to have cybersex?”
Or did they hire the same marketing consultants who originally gave Procter & Gamble’s “Dreft” detergent the name “Dreck” without realizing that it was a Yiddish word for garbage?
To be fair, “cyber-” has been used as a prefix for computer-related terms (cyberspace, cyberpunk, cybernetics, etc.) in the same way that the far more popular “e-” and “i-” have been used. It’s not exactly a new word, and hasn’t always been associated with cybersex.
There was also an enemy race of cyborgs on Doctor Who in 1966 called Cybermen. In 1968, DC Comics introduced Doctor Cyber, a female supervillain who fought Wonder Woman. In 1991, Marvel introduced a supervillain of the male variety by the name of Cyber.
But whether it’s used as a verb, adjective, supervillain, or flavor additive, I can’t be the only one who remembers the dirty “wanna cyber?” question of the 90s. I’m sure the power of One More Annual Marketing Tactic for retailers will supercede my association of the word with something dirty.
Next year, though, I hope you’ll join me in snickering at every Cyber Monday sale you see on our Grate Interwebz. And maybe, as the tryptophan coma sets in on Thursday, you’ll turn to your loved ones and ask, “Wanna Cyber Monday?”
